Lowell's Letter to the Editor of the Argus Leader

Below is one of the many letters Lowell has submitted to the Argus Leader over the past few years.  Unfortunately for Lowell, the vast majority of letters he submits are rejected, because even a paper who thrives upon controversial letters written by the mentally unstable cannot bring itself to print most of the tripe Lowell produces.

In any case, on a slow news day and when they want to drum up a little controversy, they decided to print the following:

Congress set up the special vaccine court in 1986 when pharmaceutical companies faced a liability crisis. Vaccines were being blamed for catastrophic injuries to children, and some vaccine manufacturers threatened to quit the business.

The special court set up by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled in February 2009 that neither a preservative used in vaccines nor the vaccines themselves could be linked to autism. The ruling, which involved three test cases, affects almost 5,000 children whose parents have filed claims with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

If it is true that vaccines do not cause autism, then how is it that there are doctors in this nation reversing autism by use of mercury (thimerosal) and viral overload detoxification?

Let's take a look at this? We have Dr. Rashid Buttar of North Carolina specializing in autism reversal by use of DMPS and other specialized attention to the specific health, diet and supplementation needs of an autistic child. His own son's autism was reversed through his biomedial detoxification protocol. At the age of 5, Buttar's son testified before the U.S. Congress. Buttar's informative Web site and clinic information are found at http://drbuttar.com/. He also trains other doctors nationwide. Buttar has a good video on his site that explains what has gone on in the North Carolina medical board in regard to his work.

Here is an interesting Web site by Stan Kurtz concerning similar results using an antiviral protocol: www.stankurtz.org/ biomedical/comprehensive-antiviral-approach.html.
Here is what Kurtz had to say: "My child may have had some type of genetic predisposition, sure, but when I helped him take care of his nutritional, fungal, viral, bacterial and toxic issues, he recovered."

The Autism Research Institute - www.autism.com - has documented more than 1,000 cases of autism recovery through approaches that include infection and toxin management.

Here is an interesting Web site concerning information on the federal court decision: http://www.safeminds.org/pressroom/press_releases.html.

Lowell K. Hubbs (originally published 04/07/09)

The thing about Lowell is, he doesn't understand science or the burden of proof.  Lowell merely reads something on the Internet and accepts it as face value without bothering to ask the hard questions about randomized double-blind clinical studies, peer-reviewed research published in scholarly journals, or duplication of results.

Instead, Lowell visits the website of a self-proclaimed "expert" like Dr. Rashid Buttar and he accepts what Buttar says without ever bothering to do his own research or to question Buttar's methods.  Why does Lowell do this?  Well the answer is clear; Lowell believes practically anything from anyone who goes against mainstream medicine and proven science.

What Lowell fails to mention in his letter, or on any of his various websites or blogs, is that Dr. Buttar has never been able to provide any evidence that he can cure or reverse autism.  He has never written a peer-reviewed study, he has never conducted double-blind clinical trials for his treatments, and aside from unsubstantiated claims and personal documents he has provided on his website, there is no evidence his treatments are beneficial in any way.

In fact Buttar even admitted he has never even bothered to prove his own treatments work as he suspects they do.  For example, one of Buttar's favorite autism treatments was to rub a cream on autistic children which he felt would pass through the skin, be absorbed into the bloodstream, bond to heavy metals (which Buttar and other anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists believe are the root cause of autism) and then be excreted by the kidneys.

So when Buttar was asked if he has ever tested his cream to determine if it was in fact being absorbed through the skin, this was his response:

"No, we haven't done that. Why would I waste my time proving something that I already know is working innately?"

Buttar goes on to say the following:

"It would be nice to know how it works, but it is irrelevant. It works based on empirical evidence. "

Is there any wonder why these anti-vaccine types are never taken seriously?  They not only ignore science, but they flat out refuse to submit to scientific testing.  Then again keep in mind Buttar is the same guy who recommends collecting urine from a child, filtering it, and then injecting it back into the child in order to strengthen the immune system.  Apparently this treatment works equally well in cancer patients if you are to ask Buttar, but unfortunately (predictably), Buttar has no studies or science to back up his claims.

Buttar is also the same man who has claimed to have a "100% success rate" in curing cancer.  Don't bother asking him for evidence to prove it however, and of course pay no attention to the cancer patients who visited Buttar and then proceeded to pass away.  I guess once a person dies he is no longer a patient of Dr. Buttar and is thus excluded from his calculations. 

This is probably why the North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners has disciplined Buttar and restricted his practice so that he is no longer permitted to treat children or cancer patients.   

Of course anytime one of these quacks is disciplined by a regulatory board, conspiracy theorists like Lowell come out of the woodwork and claim these "visionaries" are being suppressed because they dared to speak out against modern science-based medicine.  Granted there is no evidence to support such a claim, but since when has evidence ever mattered to a conspiracy theorist?

Thankfully for Lowell, the Argus Leader doesn't bother to fact-check any letters submitted for publication, and therefore we may see more of his nonsense published in the future as well.  Although they aren't very helpful in scientific or medical terms, they are almost always entertaining.